As the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and land degradation escalate at alarming speeds, it’s about time to move beyond sustainable fashion and embrace regenerative fashion.
What is Regenerative Fashion?
First let’s back up and define regenerative.
As Rainforest Alliance explains “regenerative agriculture is an ancient concept that originated with Indigenous peoples around the world more than a thousand years ago. In many Indigenous world views, humans and nature are not separate forces, but parts of a whole that need each other to thrive. Regenerative agriculture supports this by promoting farming methods that enrich the land—so it can continue to provide for present and future generations.”
Specifically, as Regeneration International outlines, “regenerative agriculture describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity — resulting in both carbon drawdown and improvements in the water cycle.”
So rather than focusing on doing less bad or having a reduced negative impact, regenerative puts the focus on doing more good and creating a positive impact by improving the land, revitalizing the soil, restoring nutrients, and capturing carbon from the atmosphere and into the soil. (While the atmosphere has far too much carbon, our soil actually has far too little carbon — in fact, our soil has lost about 50–70% of its original carbon content.)
As Rebecca Burgess of Fibershed puts it, “carbon is a finite resource that moves through soils, oceans, food, fibers and the atmosphere — and ancient carbon is fossilized in Earth’s core. There is no more carbon entering or leaving Earth — we are simply seeing the effects of having too much of it in the wrong place.“
How Can Fashion Be Regenerative?
Natural fibers used in the clothing and textile industry — whether they’re animal-based or plant-based — come from the land. So when the fiber is grown or the fiber-producing animal is raised as part of a regenerative system, then that fiber is then part of that regenerative system.
For example, if a cotton farmer is using regenerative, holistic management practices (such as cover crops, crop rotation, no-till, composting, and pasture cropping) to grow their cotton, that cotton could be considered regenerative cotton, just like when a cotton farmer using organic practices, they can call their cotton organic cotton.
How to Identify (and Verify) Regenerative Fashion
As with any green or green-adjacent term in the sustainable fashion space, there is inevitably going to be greenwashing. How can you tell if it’s the real deal when a brand says that they are (or a collection they have) is regenerative?
Fibershed Member or Climate Beneficial
Verified
The leader in regenerative fashion and fibers is Fibershed, a nonprofit organization based in California that is building regenerative fiber systems through research, education, events, and partnerships. The organization has built out a large network of farmers, ranchers, land managers, ecologists, mill operators, spinners, natural dyes, filters, designers, sewers, and knitters to advance regenerative and regional fiber systems.
Fibershed has a Climate Beneficial verification, which is given to brands using fibers that come from landscapes where carbon farming practices are being used.
Climate Beneficial was first used for wool from sheep who grazed on grassland and helped enhance carbon storage in the soil. Fibershed has also partnered with fashion brands, like Reformation to explore what it looks like to grow Climate Beneficial Cotton in California as well.
Regenerative Organic Certified®
Regenerative Organic Certified® is a seal overseen by Regenerative Organic Alliance and it certifies farms, ranches, brands, and products. To achieve this certification, entities must already hold a USDA organic certification, or equivalent international organic certification.
Beyond being certified organic, entities must follow criteria within the following pillars from ROC’s framework: Soil Health & Land Management, Animal Welfare, and Farmer & Worker Fairness.
In addition to food and beverage products, there are several fashion and textile companies in ROC’s brand and product directory.
Savory Institute’s Land to Market Program
Land to Market is another program with member brands and verified products ensuring that a particular product — whether it’s a food item or a textile piece — was made with practices that “are healing the planet instead of degrading it.”
The program counts some of the world’s largest fashion companies, like UGG, Kering (which owns Gucci and Saint Laurent) and Tapestry (which owns Coach) among its’ members.
Important to note: just because a brand is a Land to Market member, it does not mean that all of their products meet the Land to Market standards. In fact for some of the larger companies, they may only have the verification on a tiny portion of their products.
Where to Find Regenerative Fashion
There are a few pioneering brands bringing clothing made with Climate Beneficial fibers to the market, several brands partnering with Fibershed to create more regional fiber systems, as well as some fashion brands securing the Regenerative Organic Certified® label for several of their products.
This curated guide of regenerative fashion brands includes companies that have made a substantial commitment to regenerative sourcing. You may find more brands with a collection here or there made with regenerative fibers, but these brands have been a long-term commitment to regenerative fashion.
Note that the guide contains affiliate links. As always, we only feature brands that meet strict criteria for sustainability we love, that we think you’ll love too!
1. Christy Dawn
Categories: Dresses, Tees, and Slip Skirts
Christy Dawn has been investing in regenerative cotton with Oshadi Collective — a close partner with Fibershed — in India for several years. (I interviewed the founder of Oshadi in a podcast episode about how the producer is building a seed-to-sew supply chain that restores the earth and centers equity.)
The slow fashion brand also sources regenerative silk for their formal dresses. Each piece is digitally printed or traditionally block printed with natural or even organic dyes.
2. Maggie’s Organics
Categories: Basics and Loungewear
For over three decades, Maggie’s Organics has been going above and beyond to ensure their products are made responsibly. The Michigan-based organic fashion company now has a growing selection of basics — from tees to sweatshirts — made with Regenerative Organic Certified® cotton. Maggie’s Organics is also a World Fair Trade Organization member and is verified by the Fair Trade Federation.
3. Harvest & Mill
Categories: Basics, Loungewear, Socks
Harvest & Mill is a Fibershed Member with basics like socks, tees, and joggers made with USA-grown and milled organic cotton. The brand has many undyed pieces, like unbleached white as well as heirloom brown grown cotton and tan-green grown cotton.
All of Harvest & Mill’s pieces are independently sewn in Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco.
4. Eileen Fisher
Categories: Jackets & Sweaters, Coats, Skirts & Pants, Tops & Vests
Eileen Fisher has foundational wardrobe staples designed to last made with regenerative wool sourced from ranchers in Argentina committed to restoring depleted grasslands.
The slow fashion brand is a brand partner with Land to Market and has been selling regenerative wool products for many years, demonstrating their long-term commitment to helping to build a regenerative fashion system.
5. California Cloth Foundry
Categories: Basics & Loungewear
Slow fashion brand California Cloth Foundry is a Fibershed Soil to Soil Partner that creates loungewear from earth-friendly natural fibers like regenerative hemp, Climate Beneficial wool, Cleaner Cotton, organic cotton, and Lenzing Modal®.
CCF also uses natural dyes and finishes. The colors for their pieces are achieved by botanically dyeing the fabric with plants like weld and madder, brightening the fabrics with hydrogen peroxide, or leaving the fabric undyed. The brand ships their earth-minded pieces in compostable materials and vegetable-based inks.
6. Housework
Categories: Sweaters, Basics, Loungewear
Housework is a Fibershed Partner that collaborates with designers and artisans to create quality clothing from all-natural fibers.
From sweaters and sweatshirts to classic tees and lounge shorts, Housework offers a variety of undyed and naturally dyed garments.
7. Patagonia
Categories: Basics, Activewear, Shorts & Pants
As a founding member of the Regenerative Organic Certification, Patagonia has been one of the few larger clothing brands to commit to sourcing regenerative organic fibers.
As with all of Patagonia’s products, the Regenerative Organic Certified® cotton clothing is made to last and easy to mend with their Product Repair program.
Additional Honorable Mentions
These brands are making big commitments to regenerative fashion, though their variety of regenerative styles are relatively limited at this time.
- Outerknown has a selection of basics, like tees and tanks, made with Regenerative Organic Certified® cotton.
- prAna also has some basics made with Regenerative Organic Certified® cotton.
- Terra Thread has helped get 700 farms ROC certified and their clothing line is made entirely with Regenerative Organic Certified® cotton.
The post 7 Regenerative Fashion Brands Helping to Heal Our Planet appeared first on Conscious Life & Style.
Each year, the U.S. discards 38 to 40 percent of its food, a stubbornly high figure. Yet, other countries like the Czech Republic, Israel, and Denmark show promising solutions that American cities are beginning to adopt.
The global challenge is similarly daunting. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that about one-third of all food produced for people worldwide is lost or wasted each year. This is not just a moral issue, since so many people go hungry, but also a big climate problem. Project Drawdown lists cutting food waste as one of the top three ways to fight climate change. Some countries have been working on this for years and offer lessons for others.
Czech Republic: Rooted in Preservation Culture
Home-grown produce from backyard vegetable gardens supplements family meals throughout the Czech Republic. Residents tend fruit trees, greenhouses, and chicken coops. Many rent municipal allotment plots to use as supplemental gardens. Home composting is common and deeply normalized.
Czechs don’t just eat what their gardens yield—they savor the adventure! During mushroom and wild garlic season, families head outdoors to forage together. Extra produce finds a second life as jams or pickles, or gets frozen and fermented into tangy cabbage. Got leftover fruit? Send it to a local distillery for a splash of homemade liquor. Even stale bread avoids the bin, reborn as crispy breadcrumbs straight from your kitchen.
Apps like Nesnězeno let Czech restaurants, bakeries, cafés, and grocery stores sell extra food as discounted ‘rescue bags,’ priced 50 to 70% below retail — for pickup before closing. This connects surplus food with local buyers looking for a good deal. By the end of 2024, Nesnězeno had 1,487 partner businesses, a 132% increase from the year before, and had expanded across all Czech regions. Prague led with 239,000 rescued packages (41% of the total), followed by South Moravian and Pilsen, according to MediaGuru.
The app has been downloaded by more than 3 million users and has saved over 3 million packages of unsold meals overall.
The Czech Republic’s recycling rate for municipal waste went up from 32% in 2017 to 44% in 2021, just below the EU average. However, separating and collecting food waste is still inconsistent. A new national program for collecting kitchen animal-based waste, starting in 2026, aims to fix this.
Israel: Food Rescue as National Resilience
Food and water security in Israel are inseparable from politics. Leket Israel, the country’s largest food bank, pursues a mission of “food rescue” that serves Israelis regardless of background, coordinating with farms, packing houses, hotels, and catering operations to redirect surplus food to 200 nonprofits serving those in need.
Bustling outdoor food markets are traditional fixtures in Israeli cities, bringing consumers closer to the source of their food. In such busy places, edible food regularly ends up on the ground. Volunteers with Leket collect leftovers to distribute to people in need.
Leket released its 10th annual Food Waste and Rescue Report in late 2025. The report showed that Israel threw away 2.6 million tons of food, or 39% of what it produced, similar to the U.S. This wasted food was worth about $7 billion, or 1.3% of the country’s GDP. Still, there has been progress: food waste per person dropped 13.3% over the last ten years, from 300 kg to 260 kg per year. This improvement is thanks to more public awareness, serving food on individual plates in cafeterias, and more online food orders. But population growth and higher food prices have kept the total amount of wasted food high.
Leket and its partners now rescue about 45,000 tons of food each year, 2.25 times more than a decade ago. Still, this is only 5% of the food that could be saved in Israel. The Food Donation Encouragement Law, first passed in 2018, was updated in 2024 to give more legal protection to donors and require large public institutions to donate food.
In September 2025, Israel released its first national plan to cut food loss and waste, written by the Ministries of Environmental Protection and Agriculture. This was a big step toward better policy coordination. Israeli AgTech companies are also known worldwide for using technology to reduce food waste. For example, Sufresca makes edible coatings to keep produce fresh longer, and Taranis uses drones and AI to spot crop problems early.
Denmark: Culture as Infrastructure
In Denmark, people often leave free food in boxes on the sidewalk. Signs in front of homes might offer free apples or potatoes, or eggs for sale using the honor system. There are also Facebook groups in every major Danish city for dumpster diving, where people collect edible food that supermarkets throw away after the best-by date.
Supermarkets in Denmark lower prices on food that is close to its best-by date, especially baked goods, which are marked down every evening after 7 or 8 p.m. Food producers and supermarket chains work with groups like Too Good To Go and WeFood, Denmark’s first surplus food supermarket, to sell rescued food at big discounts. Chains like REMA 1000, Coop, and LIDL have also stopped offering bulk-buy discounts that encouraged people to buy more than they needed.
Too Good To Go started in Copenhagen in 2015 and has grown quickly. In 2023, the app saved 121.7 million meals worldwide, up 46% from 2022, and helped prevent about 362,000 tons of CO2 emissions. The app now works in over 17 countries and has more than 85 million users.
The WeFood surplus grocery network, which began as a single location in Copenhagen in 2016, has grown to six stores across Denmark. And a voluntary national commitment, “Denmark Against Food Waste,” united more than 25 food producers and retailers behind a shared goal of halving food waste by 2030. An independent third party measures and publishes annual progress.
What the U.S. Has Borrowed
Some of the ideas first used in these three countries are now catching on in the United States. However, there are still big challenges slowing progress.
Too Good To Go started in the U.S. in late 2020 and has been growing ever since. By mid-2025, the app was available in almost half of U.S. states, including cities such as Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle. The number of meals saved grew by 67% each year. In 2024, Circle K convenience stores joined the app nationwide. Too Good To Go now also works with big chains like Whole Foods, Peet’s Coffee, and Just Salad.
Since 2020, most progress on food waste in the U.S. has happened at the state level. In 2024, 29 states introduced 100 distinct food waste bills, and 18 passed. California’s SB 1383, which started in 2022, brought organics collection to 94% of communities and rescued 217,000 tons of surplus food in 2023. Washington state also passed a major law in 2022, requiring businesses that generate large amounts of organic waste to compost or arrange for collection.
Federal legislation has moved slowly. As of 2024, 13 pending federal food waste bills were before Congress, including the bipartisan Food Date Labeling Act of 2023, which would standardize confusing “best by” and “sell by” date labeling — but none had passed. The lack of national date-label standards is a key driver of household waste, as consumers discard food that is still safe to eat.
In 2015, the U.S. promised to cut food waste in half by 2030. But a 2025 study in Nature Food found that the amount of food wasted per person in 2022, at 328.5 pounds, was about the same as in 2016. The study said that no state is on track to meet the federal goal with current policies. It also pointed out that the U.S. focuses too much on recycling food waste instead of preventing or rescuing it. In contrast, Denmark and the Czech Republic work to keep food from becoming waste in the first place, while U.S. policy mostly deals with food after it’s already lost.
What You Can Do
- Download Too Good To Go or a similar app to save extra food from restaurants and grocery stores in your area.
- Volunteer at a local food bank to help get rescued food to people who need it. You’ll also learn more about food inequality in your community.
- Check out local CSAs and farmers’ markets to help cut down on food lost in big supply chains.
- Composting at home is a simple way to recycle food scraps. If you live in an apartment, see if your city has a compost drop-off program.
- Ask your supermarket to start marking down food that is close to its best-by date. This is common in Denmark but not in the U.S.
- Reach out to your congressional representatives and ask them to support the Food Date Labeling Act. Standardized date labels could make a big difference at the national level.
- Use the Earth911 recycling search tool to find recycling and food drop-off options near you.
Editor’s Note: Originally written by Chloe Skye on March 10, 2020, this article was substantially updated in April 2026.
The post 3 Countries’ Food Waste Strategies: What Can They Teach Us? appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/inspire/3-countries-food-waste-strategies-what-can-they-teach-us/
Green Living
Best of Sustainability In Your Ear: Dandelion Energy CEO Dan Yates On How Geothermal Leasing Could Transform Home Heating and Cooling
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Return to one of our most compelling interviews of 2025. Amazingly, the same Congressional bill that gutted residential clean energy tax credits also led to a major breakthrough in financing home geothermal systems. Dan Yates, CEO of Dandelion Energy, explains how the Big, Beautiful Bill introduced changes that, for the first time, allow third-party leasing of residential geothermal systems. He shares why this policy change could help ground-source heat pumps grow the way leasing helped rooftop solar. Geothermal heating and cooling is four times more efficient than a furnace and twice as efficient as air-source heat pumps. Yet only about 1% of U.S. homes use it because the upfront costs for new geothermal systems have ranged from $20,000 to $31,000. The new leasing model means new homeowners can get geothermal systems for just $10 to $40 per month on a 20-year lease, which is usually far less than what they save on energy.
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Editor’s Note: This episode originally aired on December 29, 2025.
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https://earth911.com/podcast/sustainability-in-your-ear-dandelion-energy-ceo-dan-yates-on-how-geothermal-leasing-could-transform-home-heating-and-cooling/
The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970 — 56 years ago — and, goodness, how the world has changed since then. We’ve come a long way since the days of burning our trash and pumping our gas guzzlers with leaded gasoline. In honor of those 56 years, here are 56 important changes and milestones since the first Earth Day.
Legislation
The U.S. government has led much of the environmental charge, starting with the implementation of the EPA (1) in July 1970. Later that year, the Clean Air Act (2) targeted air pollutants, followed by the Clean Water Act (3) in 1972 and the Endangered Species Act (4) in 1973.
Some lesser-known national laws included the Safe Water Drinking Act (5) in 1974, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (6) in 1976, the Toxic Substances Control Act (7) in 1976, the National Energy Act (8) in 1978, and the Medical Waste Tracking Act (9) in 1988.
In some cases, states have led the charge. Oregon passed the first bottle bill (10) in 1971, Minnesota’s Clean Indoor Air Act (11) was the first law to restrict smoking in public places (1975), and Massachusetts required low-flush toilets (12) for construction and remodeling in 1988.
Green Innovations: The Early Years
In order to comply with all the laws from the 1970s, we needed new technology to ensure consumers could adhere to the new standards. Consider:
- The “Crying Indian” PSA debuts in 1971 (13)
- Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) gets banned in 1972 (14)
- The energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulb launches in 1973 (15)
- Cars begin displaying fuel economy labels in the mid-1970s (16)
- In 1975, all cars are manufactured with catalytic converters to limit exhaust emissions (17)
- Chlorofluorocarbons are banned from aerosol cans starting in 1978 (18)
- The first curbside recycling program begins in New Jersey in 1980 (19)
- In 1986, McDonald’s switches from foam to paper food containers (20)
- Mercury is removed from latex paint in 1990, providing a viable alternative to banned lead paint (21)
- Earth911 launches the first U.S. recycling directory in 1991 (22)
- Energy Star certification debuts in 1992 for appliances and electronics (23)
- The U.S. Green Building Council begins in 1993 (24)
The Political Movement
The Green Party (25) launched in 1984, which was just the beginning of green issues entering the mainstream. One Percent for the Planet (26) was founded in 2002 to challenge businesses to donate to environmental causes, and the ISO 14001 standard (27) established environmental management. Companies are now facing pressure to allow employee telecommuting (28).
Things really developed after the release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (29) in 2006. NBC debuted Green Week (30) in 2007. Carbon offsets (31) alleviated corporate green guilt. Bisphenol A (32) made us all question plastic purchases. Hybrid vehicles (33) generated tax credits and gas savings. Plastic bag bans gave rise to a reusable bag (34) craze. Fracking (35) and the Dakota Access Pipeline (36) were two of the most hotly contested news stories of the decade, at least until the 2016 election.
Green Tech: The Next Wave
In the past 10 years, emerging green tech has made eco-friendly a way of life, including:
- LED light bulbs (37)
- Portable solar panels on backpacks and watches (38)
- Plant-based plastics (39)
- Motion sensor lighting (40)
- Faucets with automatic shut-off (41)
- Low volatile organic compound (VOC) paint (42)
- Recycled plastic clothing (43)
- Ride-sharing mobile applications (44)
- Natural cleaning products (45)
- Biodiesel engine vehicles (46)
- Food waste composting (47)
- Portable air purifiers (48)
- Europe’s Green Deal introduced global recyclables shipping regulations to reduce pollution in low-income nations (49)
- Corporate borrowers headed toward $500 billion in bond financings for the renewables transition (50)
- President Biden rejoins the Paris Climate Accord on his first day in office. (51)
The Latest Five: 2022–2026
The pace of innovation has not slowed. Five more milestones have reshaped the environmental landscape since that 51st Earth Day:
- The Inflation Reduction Act (52), signed into law in August 2022, became the largest climate investment in U.S. history, directing roughly $370 billion toward clean energy tax credits, EV incentives, methane reduction, and domestic clean manufacturing. Analysts projected it will drive more than $4 trillion in cumulative capital investment over a decade and put the U.S. on track for a 40% emissions reduction by 2030. Sadly, many of its key provisions have been defunded or eliminated by the Trump Administration.
- The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (53), adopted by 188 governments in December 2022, set the most ambitious biodiversity protection commitment in history. Its headline “30×30” target calls for conserving 30% of the planet’s land, freshwater, and ocean areas by 2030, a goal that would require doubling current protected land coverage and quadrupling marine protections.
- America’s first commercial direct air capture plant (54), opened by Heirloom Carbon Technologies in Tracy, California in November 2023, marked the arrival of atmospheric carbon removal at commercial scale on U.S. soil. The plant uses limestone to absorb CO₂ directly from the air, with the captured carbon injected into concrete for permanent storage. In May 2024, Climeworks activated the world’s largest direct air capture facility, the Mammoth plant in Iceland, with a design capacity to remove 36,000 tons of CO₂ per year.
- Solid-state batteries (55), a next-generation alternative to conventional lithium-ion technology, moved from laboratory promise toward commercial reality between 2022 and 2026. Unlike liquid-electrolyte batteries, solid-state versions are less flammable, achieve higher energy density, and degrade more slowly. In early 2025, Mercedes-Benz began road-testing a prototype EV powered by a lithium-metal solid-state cell that extended driving range 25% over comparable liquid-battery models. Multiple automakers and cell manufacturers now target commercial production between 2027 and 2030.
- Perovskite and tandem solar cells (56), a new photovoltaic technology that pairs conventional silicon with thin perovskite layers, pushed solar efficiency into territory once considered theoretical. By 2024, tandem cells in laboratory settings exceeded 34% efficiency — well above the roughly 22% ceiling of standard silicon panels only a few years ago. manufacturers in Asia and Europe began scaling pilot production lines. Because perovskite cells can be printed on flexible substrates, they open the door to solar surfaces on buildings, vehicles, and everyday objects that conventional panels cannot reach.
The past 56 years have been huge when it comes to saving the environment. Expect more to come, including a resurgent EV industry, nuclear fusion, regenerative agriculture, restorative forestry, and more, as costs and the cool factor improve.
Editor’s Note: Originally published on April 18, 2018, this article was most recently updated in April 2026.
The post 56 Environmental Innovations in the 56 Years Since Earth Day Began appeared first on Earth911.
https://earth911.com/eco-tech/eco-friendly-innovations/
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